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Altho I'm a wee bit sad that the 2012 Olympics have come and gone, as well as some of their equestrian partnerships, I've shed way more tears for the horses on this, TOB, and world-wide that crossed the bridge the past two weeks...

"And I will be an embarrassment to all
Who have not found the peace in being free
to have a horse as a best friend."

I do feel badly for Charlotte and Carl. However, that owner springboarded them to the top of dressage, and helped give Charlotte 2 gold medals. !!!!! They've (C and C) both proven what they can do with good horses. I can't imagine that either will suffer for fantastic horses in the future, and Charlotte is so young and already a multi-gold medalist in dressage! She has such a bright future. We've not seen the last of them, and I think that's very exciting.

Carl owns both horses himself and apparently it has been the plan for many years to sell them after the Olympics. He said that it is his chance to live life without a ball and chain.......certainly no one can blame him.

Partnerships come and go. I am sure several of these riders will have new horses for us to watch them ride...

The only things I am sad about are - I feel like the US riders overall need to all look at their game plan but then, the US and Canadian horses do travel far and the US horses have a lot of trials to deal with. I thought our eventing horses seemed tired compared to when I watched them at Rolex in April.

That said - what is SAD is that the top equestrian events are not televised. THAT is what I will miss. I loved being at the gym working out and watching the show jumping at the same time. ALL the people around me, even nonhorsie people were glued to the TV.

Wish the world cup and Rolex and some of our bigger events got some air time! Seems like we get to watch this stuff on TV only once every 4 years.

Agreed. The ride I watch again and again is David Marcus on Capital, just because he handled that horse's brains falling out of his head soooo very well.

He did an amazing job. My favorite part of his ride is when they are heading to the inspection tent and his trainer (?) says very philosophically "That's horses!" I thought that was very generous considering the circumstances and everything it took to get to the Olympics, now all down the drain.

I kept that comment firmly in mind yesterday at the local schooling show - first cool day in a while and all of the horses were extra loony, including mine! I think it will be my mantra on those kind of days!!!

I am not aware that anything happened to Fuego, but you may be confusing the Canadian rider whose horse lost it during his dressage test when it started to rain heavily and people in the stands opened their umbrellas. He wasn't able to get the horse back under control in the required amount of time and was eliminated.

The Canadian fall out may be the elimination of one of the Canadian show jumpers for "hyper synesitivity (SP) and the subsequent statements by Eric Lamaze that he would no longer compete for Canada until they came out in support of the rider involved.

The OP said words to the effect that something must have upset Juan and it affected his ride and that Fuego was on the line...

Didn't hear about the Canadian dressage rider, either... but overall the Canadians did not have great results, through a litany of problems, none of which could be called 'blame'. Cannot stand the blame game, anyway, esp. from people who could never achieve those levels.

Is anyone else reminded of Debbie MacDonald and Brentina at Hong Kong when thinking of SP and Ravel at London? Both horses seemed to be a bit past their best, but were sent to the Olympics anyway. The US needed them, since we don't have the depth that other countries seem to have. Traditionally we have one world competitive horse and the rest are nowhere near the podium.